Description
We present evidence for an autocrine cytokine network in human ovarian cancer that has paracrine actions on the tumour microenvironment. In experiments using bioinformatics analysis of large gene expression array datasets and ovarian cancer biopsies, we found that the inflammatory cytokines TNF- and IL-6, the chemokine receptor CXCR4 and its ligand CXCL12, are co-regulated in malignant cells. We named this co-regulation the TNF network.